Is Snape good or evil? (longer)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 148824

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at ...> 
wrote:

> Pippin:
> What it bespeaks is that Snape no longer assumes Harry would think 
> his father was an "amusing man." In fact, Snape's attitude towards 
> Harry must have changed significantly since OOP.

If he now understands how Harry thinks, why is he trying to rub his 
face further in it?  Is he equating Harry's actions towards Draco 
(which he doesn't seem to even plumb in depth) with James and Sirius' 
pranking during school?  That seems way off the mark to me, and it's 
certainly not a constructive result.  No, this strikes me more 
as "the cat is out of the bag--so now I feel free to point it out to 
you at any opportunity possible".

> Pippin:
> We're reminded in HBP that cutting someone, even with a blunt axe, 
> will kill even a wizard quite dead. Or do you think Snape doesn't 
> know how to cut a throat?

That doesn't change the connotations and their resultant kick in the 
gut of the AK curse, one bit.  That curse seems put on another plane, 
into another category, by the author.

> Pippin:
> Trusting Dumbledore is dangerous and skeezy?? Where do you get
> that? Who in canon has come to harm by trusting Dumbledore?

Trusting in Dumbledore because 'he's Dumbledore!' and not using your 
own critical faculty is dangerous.  It's the kind of obedience, 
because Dumbledore just *must* know best (because he knows the most), 
which generated a good portion of Harry's misery in OotP.  Dumbledore 
flat-out admits how badly he's mishandled things at the end of the 
book there.  And of course, Dumbledore himself has come to harm by 
trusting in himself enough not to share his thoughts or deep reasons 
with other members of the Order.  

I suspect there's been some kind of harm done to the cause by the 
profound disarray which the white hats are in at the end of HBP.  And 
they really are shocked there, aren't they?  I myself was a little 
surprised at the depth of their dependency; I suppose that post-OotP 
I had wanted to see the Order as a more engaged and equitable body 
than that.

I know many listies may vary on this, but I myself will be very 
disappointed if it boils down to "See, Dumbledore was right all 
along, and all you have to do (and what you should have done all 
along, foolish child who thinks he knows more than he does) is just 
trust in where he's leading you."  Perhaps I should have been clearer 
that it's the turning off of the willingness to question and not be 
satisfied by statements of faith (which is, entertainingly, 
Hermione's position in OotP) which bothers me, and I think has been 
marked in big flashing lights as a dangerous option.  That doesn't 
mean that there's a slippery slope to total skepticism, though.

-Nora resists the flippant tendency to insert an O RLY and a NO WAI! 
in the above